JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

I am getting error Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) when trying to decode JSON.

The URL I use for the API call works fine in the browser, but gives this error when done through a curl request. The following is the code I use for the curl request.

The error happens at return simplejson.loads(response_json)

response_json = self.web_fetch(url)
response_json = response_json.decode("utf-8")
return json.loads(response_json)


def web_fetch(self, url):
    buffer = StringIO()
    curl = pycurl.Curl()
    curl.setopt(curl.URL, url)
    curl.setopt(curl.TIMEOUT, self.timeout)
    curl.setopt(curl.WRITEFUNCTION, buffer.write)
    curl.perform()
    curl.close()
    response = buffer.getvalue().strip()
    return response

Traceback:

File "/Users/nab/Desktop/myenv2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/handlers/base.py" in get_response
  111.                         response = callback(request, *callback_args, **callback_kwargs)
File "/Users/nab/Desktop/pricestore/pricemodels/views.py" in view_category
  620.     apicall=api.API().search_parts(category_id= str(categoryofpart.api_id), manufacturer = manufacturer, filter = filters, start=(catpage-1)*20, limit=20, sort_by="[["mpn","asc"]]")
File "/Users/nab/Desktop/pricestore/pricemodels/api.py" in search_parts
  176.         return simplejson.loads(response_json)
File "/Users/nab/Desktop/myenv2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/simplejson/__init__.py" in loads
  455.         return _default_decoder.decode(s)
File "/Users/nab/Desktop/myenv2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/simplejson/decoder.py" in decode
  374.         obj, end = self.raw_decode(s)
File "/Users/nab/Desktop/myenv2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/simplejson/decoder.py" in raw_decode
  393.         return self.scan_once(s, idx=_w(s, idx).end())

Exception Type: JSONDecodeError at /pricemodels/2/dir/
Exception Value: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) __del__: Questions

import time
time.sleep(5)   # Delays for 5 seconds. You can also use a float value.

import time
while True:
    print("This prints once a minute.")
    time.sleep(60) # Delay for 1 minute (60 seconds).

from time import sleep
sleep(0.1) # Time in seconds

JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) __del__: Questions